incantation
Other forms: incantations
"Double, double toil and trouble / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." These lines, cackled by the Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth, are part of the most famous incantation — or magic spell made of words — in English literature.
Incantation shares a Latin source with enchant, both of which are related to chant. An incantation, then, summons a thing or action into being with words that are sung, spoken, or written. Long before it became the catchword of stage magicians, abracadabra was regarded as a powerful incantation capable of warding off serious disease. The phrase hocus pocus may be a corruption of a 17th-century incantation spoken during the Roman Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist, "hoc est corpus meum" ("this is my body").
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a ritual recitation of words or sounds believed to have a magical effectsynonyms: conjurationtypes:invocationan incantation used in conjuring or summoning a deviltype of:
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Vocabulary lists containing incantation
When they are marooned on a deserted island, a group of schoolboys attempts to form a new society.
In this prequel to The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet life until a group of dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf enlist him in their quest for a dragon's treasure.
In this eerie story, Tom Walker trades his soul for wealth. Read the full text here. Here are links to our lists for other works by Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow